News, 11 May 2000

11 May 2000

11 May 2000 At 12.56 PM today, India's population will officially reach one billion. However, a digital population counter set up in New Delhi by the United Nations Population Fund to promote their concern of controlling population growth has stopped just hours before it reached the momentous total. They have since been battling to set up a new clock in time. [Metro, 11th May] Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, has warned that by 2025 nearly a third of Europeans will be collecting pensions as a result of falling fertility rates and consequently ageing populations. The United Nations has reported that 61 countries, including all of Europe, have fertility rates below replacement level and that this year another 19 countries are expected to be added to the list. The average rate in Western Europe is now 1.6 children per woman, and in Eastern Europe it is even lower at 1.3. Italy's population is on course to fall by 28 percent to only 41 million before 2050. The figures come after years of over-population scares and population growth control programmes. [Catholic Family&Human Rights Institute, 4th May] The National Abortion Campaign in America will today hold a 'public service campaign' in Boston, Massachusetts, which will attempt to refute information contained within advertisements placed by Project Rachel. Speakers will include Rev Dr Katherine Hancock Ragsdale of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and a Harvard medical student who will explain why she is committed to becoming an abortion provider. [U.S. Newswire, 9th May] Project Rachel is a Catholic service for men and women touched by an abortion experience. It operates a confidential telephone line and one of its websites describes its purpose as "post-abortion reconciliation and healing for the 'other victims' of abortion".